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Economics Students Critically assessed

Vani-Vihar Economics Students Critically assessed Indian International Trade Situation

Report;Bureau,Odishabarta

Bhubaneswar,10th August 2017:Students of Analytical and Applied Economics Department of the NAAC A+ Accredited Utkal University organized a seminar today on “Major Trends in Global and Regional Trade and Finance” with Dr. Priyadarshi Dash, a globally acclaimed expert on International Trade and Finance, working at the Research and Information System for Developing Countries, New Delhi. Initiating the discussions, the current Head of the Department Dr. Siba Sankar Mohanty focused on the increasing role of trade stabilization policies in securing economic growth of a country like India. “It is a pity that our country, aspiring for becoming a world economic giant in the era of trade liberalization, is still a minor player in the global market. While the economic reforms in the 1990s have helped India to integrate with the global market, what we actually see today is an increase in the volume of imports from around 8 percent of the country’s GDP in 1990s to around 32 percent of GDP in the recent years. The trade gap has expanded in recent years like never before. The moot policy question is whether such expansion in global integration has been with some substantial benefits to the people of India in general? The answer to this question is probably not very straightforward. At one hand at the macro level, we have seen a growth in the national income for quite some time. On the other hand, we also see collapsing domestic industries, farmer suicides and so on. It is therefore meaningful for every student of economics to study the global political economy in a more objective manner.”

Continuing the discussions, Dr. Priyadarshi Dash, the expert from RIS, New Delhi highlighted the global and regional trends in international trade and finance from the perspective of the underdeveloped countries. He held that although the global financial crisis of the first decade of the new millennium seems to have subdued and countries like India has been able to show a significant amount of resilience against the odds of the global crisis, the cyclical nature of the crisis as well as the longer term impacts of the crisis is not going to fade away for the underdeveloped economies. India is no exception. Although it took some time to manifest, the recent trends of unemployment, fluctuations in output and disturbances in the economic coordination process in many pockets of the larger Indian economy are only the aftereffects of the 2007 global crisis. Needless to say, while the top losers of the global crisis of the last decade have started recovering in significant ways, situation in countries like India is worsening with expanding trade deficits at their all time highs in recent years.”

The interactive session with a participation of more than a hundred students ended with the formal vote of thanks by Professor In Charge Student Activities, Dr. Himanshu Sekhar Rout.

For last several decades, the Department of Analytical and Applied Economics of Utkal University has played a critical role in shaping popular opinion on public policy issues and influencing public policies in the state of Odisha with a perspective of the common man through seminars, workshops, orientation programmes, submission of white papers to the government etc. This seminar, second in the series in the ongoing semester was an effort to make students of economics understand the long term impact of the dynamics of external economy. The first seminar presentation of the department was made by Prof. K N Murty from Hyderabad Central University on using econometrics to understand the long term impacts of demonetization process run by the Modi Government last year.